Supermarket giant Tesco is considering tougher restrictions on how it sells lads’ mags featuring sexualised images on their front covers.
Tesco follows a decision by the Co-operative retailer earlier this week to give titles such as Loaded, Nuts and Zoo until 9 September to either put their magazines in a ‘modesty sleeve’ or face being taken off the shelves.
Tesco, the UK’s biggest supermarket chain, announced it is evaluating whether lads’ mags need to be covered up and less prominently displayed in stores because of their sexual content.
Dehumanised
Actress Romola Garai, speaking in support of the Lose the lads’ mags campaign group, said, “what’s the UK’s biggest retailer doing lining its shelves with lads’ mags like Nuts and Zoo – page after page of women shown as dehumanised sex objects? How am I supposed to explain that to my daughter?”
A Tesco spokeswoman said: “We are looking into the issues that these groups have raised and were happy to meet with them for a constructive discussion”.
She added: “We are also talking to our customers, to find out what they think, before we make any decisions about next steps.”
Exposed
A number of other retailers such as Sainsburys and Asda already have policies in place which require lads’ mags to be covered up with ‘modesty sleeves’ and placed out of sight of children. Waitrose does not sell Loaded, Zoo or Nuts.
Commenting on the lads’ mags debate, Telegraph columnist, Jake Wallis Simons, said: “Arguments can be made, and in recent days have been made, both for them and against them. It seems to me, however, that the underlying issue is impossible to deny: children these days are exposed to too much sex.”
Pendulum
He added, “our haste to abandon prudishness in all its forms, which has coincided with the collapse of religion, has allowed the pendulum to swing too far in the opposite direction. Any Friday night in a British city centre should provide evidence enough.”
Lose the Lads’ Mags was launched earlier this year by lobby groups UK Feminista and Object, and campaigns for retailers to stop selling the titles.